A couple of readers sent information about an announcement of floor tiles that some claim are from the Herodian temple. Actually, last evening I saw a report where it was claimed that Jesus, Himself, may have walked on those very tiles when He overthrew the money changers in Matthew 21 (watch also the sermon Matthew 21-23: ‘Palm Sunday,’ Come as You Are?, and the Greatest Commandments).

Anyway, here are two reports about the tiles:

Archaeologists working in Jerusalem have restored floor tiling that was part of the courtyards of King Herod’s Second Temple over 2,000 years ago.

It was the first time archaeologists successfully restored a part of the Temple complex built by King Herod, who ruled in Jerusalem for three years beginning in 37 BCE, according to Gabriel Barkay, director of The Temple Mount Sifting Project.

The flooring “enables us to get an idea of the Temple’s incredible splendor,” Barkay said in a statement. …

Archaeologists from the Jerusalem-based Temple Mount Sifting Project believe they have reconstructed a unique architectural element from the Second Temple—floor tiles on which Jesus would have walked.

“This is the first time that we are able to restore one of the elements of the architecture of the Second Temple in Jerusalem,” archaeologist Gaby Barkay told CBN News.

“We were able to do all kinds of drawings and reconstructions of the buildings based on the written sources but we didn’t have any physical remains from inside the Temple Mount,” he said.

In 1999, tons of debris were illegally removed from under the Temple Mount to build an underground mosque, angering archaeologists and others because of the history that was being destroyed. …

Approximately 600 colored stone floor tile segments have been uncovered, with more than 100 of them definitively dated to the Herodian Second Temple period.

This style of flooring is consistent with those found in Herod’s palaces at Masada, Herodian, and Jericho among others, as well as in majestic palaces and villas in Italy, also attributed to the time of Herod.

The tile segments, mostly imported from Rome, Asia Minor, Tunisia and Egypt, were created from polished multicolored stones cut in a variety of geometric shapes.

“The tile segments were perfectly inlaid such that one could not even insert a sharp blade between them,” Snyder said.

Barkay said for him this floor connects him to his ancestors, his people. But it also should hold major significance for Christians.

But not everyone is convinced that these are tiles to the actual Herodian Temple:

September 10, 2016

Archeologists believe they have found new proof that Herod’s Second Temple once stood on the site of the current “Dome of the Rock” in Jerusalem, walked upon by Jesus, but others are saying “not so fast.”

Jerusalem-based Temple Mount Sifting Project announced earlier this week it has successfully restored a unique architectural element of the Second Temple.

It’s known as “opus sectile,” which Latin for “cut work,” an ancient Roman method of cutting polished stones and inlaying them in very expensive floors to make a beautiful design. The tile segments were inlaid with such precision that one could not insert a sharp blade between them. …

“It enables us to get an idea of the Temple’s incredible splendor,” stated Dr. Gabriel Barkay, co-founder and director of the Temple Mount Sifting Project. The restored tiles were presented to the public on Sept. 8, at the 17th Annual City of David Archaeological Conference.

The exact place where the tiles came from is not 100 percent locked down but Barkay says he is certain they originated from a building within the present-day Temple Mount.

But all are not sold on the idea that the luxurious tiles found and restored by the Temple Mount Sifting Project actually came from the Second Temple.

One of the skeptics is Robert Cornuke, who in 2014 published the results of a years-long investigation into the location of the ancient Jewish Temple. The true location, he believes, is not on the traditional site where Jews pray at the Wailing Wall and Muslims gather for Friday prayers at the Dome of the Rock. Rather, he says, the true Temple site is about 600 feet to the south in what is the ancient City of David. The traditional Temple Mount that includes the Wailing Wall and the Dome of the Rock is actually the remains of Fort Antonia, an ancient Roman fort that boarded thousands of Roman troops, he says.

Otherwise, how could Jesus’ prophecy about the Temple in Matthew 24 that “not one stone would be left standing upon another” be true?

Cornuke calls his research “biblical kryptonite” because, if it’s true, it would set the established order on its head in terms of Jewish-Muslim relations. Right now the Muslim Waft controls the Temple Mount and dictates where Jews can pray, where Christian and Jewish pilgrims can walk, the whole shebang. But if the actual temple site was in the City of David, on a strip of land already under the control of the Israeli government, then the rebuilding of the ancient temple could begin without the consent of the Muslim Waft, which is based in Jordan.

Cornuke believes the Temple Mount Sifting Project is making a huge leap, an unwarranted assumption, by assigning the tiles to the actual Jewish Temple.

“Finding exquisite tiles does not necessarily make them from the Temple area and at best only proves there are beautiful tiles,” Cornuke told WND. “This find is an assumptive interpretation at best which may be correctly assigned to the temple or they also may have been for other Roman usage.”

The late Dr. Ernest Martin was once part of the old Worldwide Church of God and he concluded that the temple was NOT on the Temple Mount (see also Why is a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem Not Required?). Robert Cornuke earned a Masters of Arts Biblical Studies and a Ph.D. in Bible and Theology from Louisiana Baptist University. He was not a member of the old WCG and does not seem to have a COG background based upon what I have read about him. But he has come to very similar conclusions to Dr. Martin.

Anyway, while many of the tiles recently announced do date from the right time period, there remain doubts:

1)if they were part of the Herodian temple or its court
2) if the Herodian temple was actually on the area called the Temple Mount.

Personally, I am not convinced that the area now called the Temple Mount was the precise area where the Jewish temples once stood. What I do believe is that some of the stones that were once part of the Herodian temple ended up being used by Christians in the first century A.D. to build a Church of God in Jerusalem–a church that may have prophetic ramifications (see Church of God on Jerusalem’s Western Hill). And thus, the ‘holy place; that Jesus spoke of in Matthew 24:15 may not be the area currently called the Temple Mount.

Anyway, the location of the Herodian temple is something that I continue to research from time to time as my schedule permits.